


Wreckage

by ConfusedArchaeologist



Category: Game of Thrones (TV)
Genre: Drabbles, F/M, I haven't written ff in forever, Past Abuse, Past Rape/Non-con, Sanrion Appreciation Week, Tumblr Prompt, i have no idea what this is, or will be, prompt
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2017-10-04
Updated: 2017-10-06
Packaged: 2019-01-09 03:45:57
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 2
Words: 2,015
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/12268215
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/ConfusedArchaeologist/pseuds/ConfusedArchaeologist
Summary: These are pieces written for the Sansa/Tyrion Appreciation week over on tumblr, mostly just little drabbles and I might continue beyond the prompts for this week, we'll see....





	1. Teach

Sansa and Tyrion have had many different teachers in their lives 

(Maesters and Septas and their fathers who teach them history and stories and about family and honour. And Shae who teaches them each different things. Tyrion, ultimately that he shouldn’t fall in love with whores. Or anyone. Sansa, she tries to teach that you shouldn’t trust anyone and that you should carry a knife with you at all times. It takes a while to sink in but Sansa learns her lesson eventually. Robert, Joffrey and Cersei teach them how not to be rulers. Baelish and Varys teach them to lie and plot and scheme. Jon and Daenerys teach them to be honest again. Bran teaches them to open their minds and so does Arya in her own way. Bronn and Brienne and Jamie don’t really teach them anything they didn’t already know about but they keep them alive, just about. They learn how to manipulate and plot and manoeuvre the people around them into the next position that is needed to stop the world sinking into snow and darkness.)   
But they don’t know how to love.   
Tyrion was never taught how and Sansa has had it beaten out of her.  
They teach each other to trust.   
They teach each other to be gentle and patient.   
They teach each other to love.


	2. Power

Sansa had never thought of herself as powerful. Nor had she ever particularly aspired to be so, not even when she was young and thought that all she wanted was to marry Joffrey and be queen. She had thought that being queen meant giving him beautiful babies, sewing beautiful dresses, and cheering for beautiful knights. And yes if her mother or father had asked she would have said that being a good queen also meant being kind and just to your subjects and helping the poor and needy. But for Sansa, none of that translated into power. Power was for her father and brothers. For fighting in wars and in the training yard. For the one making the judgment also being the one who swings the sword. 

Of course, when she got to Kingslanding cheering for knights in tourneys wasn’t as romantic as she had thought, and being married to Joffrey turned out to be the last thing she wanted. After her father was beheaded and her family declared traitors powerful was the last word anyone would have associated with her.  
Oh there were moments when she told herself she must be strong, that she must be steel, that she must be a true Stark and a wolf. She is. She doesn’t let Cersei or Ser Meryn Trant or anyone in Kingslanding break her. But she still isn’t powerful. 

(She has a brief glimpse of it when Lord Tyrion asks her if she still wants to continue with her engagement to Joffrey and she manages to declare her loyalty to the crown, despite having just been beaten in front of the entire court. She’s not meant to but she hears his muttered words “Lady Stark, you might survive us yet”) 

She doesn’t feel powerful when she finds out she’s not to marry Joffrey and that she’s to marry the imp instead. She doesn’t feel powerful when Cersei tells her that a woman’s greatest weapon is the one between her legs or when Margaery tries to convince her that being married to a dwarf won’t be so bad really. 

(she feels a fleeting hint of power and satisfaction when she refuses to kneel at her wedding and Tyrion is humiliated. It is extinguished in a heartbeat and replaced with an overwhelming feeling of guilt.) 

She feels anything but powerful during her wedding night. Terrified, ashamed, alone. And relieved. Her husband doesn’t touch her and she spends the night alternating between hating her Lannister husband and hating herself.

She doesn’t feel powerful while she walks with him in the gardens and they conspire to hurt the people who laugh at them. She’s a married woman but she finds a childish glee in their plots.

She doesn’t feel anything when they tell her that her mother and brother are dead. She’s numb and cold. Hot tears flood from her eyes but they could be ice for all she notices them. She cannot grieve publicly for she knows that Cersei and Joffrey are just waiting to call her out, to mock her and to twist the knife even deeper into her heart. So she becomes nothing. She barely eats, she sleeps through the mornings, pretends to pray in the afternoons and lies staring at the canopy at night. 

When the opportunity for rescue comes she does not feel powerful. Watching Joffrey choke she is too confused to be happy. Her last glance as she slips from the wedding is of her Lord husband. He may have been her only protector in Kingslanding but even he doesn’t know how vulnerable he looks at that moment.

When she realises how much of the events in Kingslanding have been engineered by Lord Baelish she feels stupid. 

(When she realises what the looks and touches that Littlefinger give her mean, she thinks that maybe she could be powerful.) 

She thinks she’s safe. She thinks she’s going home and that even though her entire family is dead, she’ll have the north behind her. She doesn’t feel powerful. She feels tired. She doesn’t know Ramsay, but she thinks the worst is behind her. 

She didn’t know that she could be so wrong about anything. 

Her second wedding ceremony is as different from her first as it could possibly be. So is the wedding night. 

She’s back in Winterfell and she’s never felt less powerful. 

She doesn’t feel powerful when she escapes Winterfell either. 

She’s scared and she’s cold. 

And then Lady Brienne finds her and she’s still scared and cold.  
They make it to Castleblack and Jon and she’s slightly less scared and cold. 

Ramsay’s letter reaches them and what she’s feeling isn’t fear any more. Death can’t be worse than what he’s already done to her. She wants her home back and she’s going to get it. 

She doesn’t feel powerful when they’re planning for war or petitioning the north to help them. She feels desperate and frantic. She goes over every moment she spent with Ramsay hoping to remember something that will help them. It doesn’t work. 

When she rides ahead of the Knights of the Vale, who have ridden north for her, she doesn’t feel powerful. She searches for Jon on the battlefield and wishes she had told him about Baelish earlier. 

When she watches the dogs eat Ramsay alive she feels something. She’s not sure if it’s power, but it’s definitely satisfaction. For herself and for Theon, despite what he did to their home. 

They call the banners to Winterfell and she watches as the lords of the north declare her bastard brother king. She is Lady of Winterfell and she thinks she should be satisfied with that. 

Her brother rules and she tries to help him. And then her brother goes south. She doesn’t feel powerful, she feels frustrated. 

(Lord Baelish is right, she isn’t happy. But she does get the satisfaction of getting the last word and wiping that smirk off his face. It might not be power but it’s something.) 

Her brother and sister are alive. She should feel happy but neither of them are the same and now she has even more to worry about. (As if the night king and the dead and Cersei Lannister weren’t enough.)

When she gets word that her brother has bent the knee she feels powerless. Powerless to speak to the Northern lords who chose Jon as their king, powerless to keep the faith of the people who recently called her a Lannister whore, a Bolton whore, powerless to keep the north safe. 

She and Arya finally get rid of Lord Baelish, and while she can almost feel the strength of the respect that this has given her from the men in her hall and from Arya herself, she’s almost scared of the power she now realises that she wields. 

No matter. Weeks later and the Dragon Queen arrives at Winterfell and in the face of her dragons, her army and the look on her brothers face when he looks at the blonde woman she knows she’s lost what little influence and power she had. 

She welcomes the queen’s entourage, shows them to their rooms and invites them to dine in the great hall that evening. She does everything the Lady of Winterfell is expected to do. She greets the Lord Hand gracefully and manages to speak in full sentences, which is more than she can say for his stammering. He tells her how happy he is to see her well and she’s inclined to believe him. 

That evening in the great hall Jon declares that there will be no talk of war or kneeling. Family has been reunited and politics will wait til the morn. There are mutterings and dark looks at this, but Sansa’s fierce gaze quietens the northern lords. (It’s a look she remembers her mother giving Robb and Theon when they’d misbehaved. She finds it has the same cowing effect on the Lords as it did on young boys).

To be frank she agrees with them, but she must support Jon, even if she berates him in private. 

Tensions ease as the ale does its work and eventually Sansa feels she can leave. 

She spends the next day trying to figure out how they’re going to feed the Dothraki and Unsullied as well as their own men. She feels helpless. In fact she avoids Jon and her new queen as much as she possibly can, apart from hen they must appear as a united front in public. However she cannot avoid Lord Tyrion. 

Apparently he is who she must work with if she’s going to work out how to win this war. Yes Jon and Daenerys and the others might have big ideas about how to fight battles and defend keeps, but Tyrion is the one who will help her feed her people, he is the one who will help keep everyone happy. She sees the way Tyrion watches her while they work on maps and ledgers. The way he looks at her with admiration and something else that she can’t quite identify. They haven’t mentioned their marriage, or the way she abandoned him to the lions. He respects her opinions and she doesn’t hate him. Which works for them. At least she hopes it does. She sees the way he looks at her, listens to her and backs her opinions at the war councils. At first she’s not sure how this should make her feel. She’s learnt that men never show an interest in her if they don’t want anything, but Tyrion asks for nothing. 

They start to move on from conversations about grain to games of Cyvasse. From there they move on to the occasional glass of wine and a rare jape. Mostly of the “we’re all going to die so what does it matter if the Queen is fucking her nephew and your father lied to you” type of joke. But she’d rather laugh about it than cry, which is what she feels like doing. 

He still watches her and she thinks the looks are changing from admiration to longing. They spend long nights together pouring over plans that they have no faith in. She looks at him and forgets that she hated him. She forgets that he was the imp who tied her to a family she was terrified of. She listens to him speak of his sister, realises that he was never free in Kingslanding either. 

One night they have too much to drink and make a dark joke too many. She feels desperate.  
Maybe that is why she kisses him. Or maybe it’s the fact that he’s the only one who’s ever made her feel powerful. And that itself is more powerful than anything another man can offer her.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Thank you for the Kudos and the comments! I know this chapter is very Sansa heavy and kinda repetitive. Maybe I'll end up doing a Tyrion sequel of sorts. Hope you enjoyed!

**Author's Note:**

> Hello! While I've been stalking AO3 for a long time this is my first time writing or posting fanfiction for a loooooooong time! But I couldn't sleep the other night and words started coming out of me at 3am and I thought I'd post them up here, cause we all need a little more Sansa/Tyrion in our lives. Not sure how many of the prompts I'll complete or how long each one will be, but we'll see! Hope you enjoy :)


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